


the stone raft

by primaveris



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, Gen, Historical Hetalia, Historical References, Portugal thinks hes being a good big bro, They're both a mess, guys this is about dictatorships ok, no fluff here, so many
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22852894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primaveris/pseuds/primaveris
Summary: portugal, mid 50s. the iberian dictatorships argue and make up, as they are wont to.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 17





	the stone raft

_\- 1957 -_

As usual, it had been Spain the one to break the silence.

“Are we doing the right thing?”

Different from other times, his voice didn't sound cheerful or demanding as it had a few decades before.

Portugal looked up from the oranges he'd been peeling. Glanced ahead of him, at the sunset coloured fields that stretched up to the mountain ranges, that in turn, touched the sky.

They were sitting side by side at their doorstep, facing the meadows before them, on the patio of a tiny abandoned house up in Portugal's north. The region had always been particularly unchanging and timeless. That's why Portugal liked it the most. The lack of sound too, made it enjoyable. Lisbon had become too noisy with all the new machines America had been shoving onto his lands. It was a sacrifice to be made, considering the boy had been becoming unsurprisingly arrogant and worryingly powerful after his victory in that pesky war. Portugal still grumbled over the fact that the brat had chosen _Nagasaki_ of all cities. He wasn't being sentimental; he hadn't forgotten Timor.

“I'm not doubting you,” said Spain quickly. Oh, he'd taken too long to respond.

He turned to his left. His brother wasn't looking at him, nor was he looking at the fields, but at the bouquet on his lap he'd been fiddling with ever since they'd sat down. Spain had never been particularly fond of oranges in this region, and so he'd spent the afternoon picking flowers instead. No matter what he said, Portugal knew he was still sentimental over the old moor.

Portugal went back to his oranges. “You _are_ doubting me,” he said.

“Am not,” he pouted. “I just think— Everyone else is—”

“They don't matter—”

“I know, I know. We don't need them. But what about us, our people?”

“ _Spain_ —” Spain had been acting like that, lately. Doubtful. Doubting him, doubting his older brother, as if Portugal wasn't older and wiser and—

This time, when he looked at Spain, his brother was looking back at him. He didn't like that look though, that look of uncertainty, worry.

“Spain,” he resumed, “we're doing this for our people. _Everyone else_ is living on the debris of their own lands, falling apart, fighting their own people. When has mingling in other nations' business ever helped us?”

“But our people—”

“Are happier than ever. Look at us. Don't you have everything you need?”

“I _do_ , but— brother, are we doing the right thing?”

Portugal set the basket on the small table between them. We was starting to lose his patience. Spain had never really understood what it took for a nation to survive. He'd always been the luckier one at that, having more people and more land and more resources, but that was the exact reason why Portugal had actually learned to live on without luck.

“For the good of our people,” he said slowly, looking straight at Spain, “we have to make sacrifices. If our people hear, read, or say the wrong things, our nation as a whole becomes endangered. Everyone else's silly ideas and concepts of freedom and nationhood have brought them nothing but conflict. They don't even know what they're fighting for. Is it worth it to make your people suffer just to prove a point?”

He knew he was picking at a sore spot, at an open wound, but Spain just had to—

“I understand.”

Ah.

“You do, don't you?” Portugal looked back at the sunset. Yes, everything was the same as it'd always been. They were happier than ever and really, how come it had taken so many centuries for them to realise that home was best?

He got up. “Let's go back inside,” he said. “It's getting a bit chilly, don't you think? Besides, I'd love to have this orange cake ready before nighttime.” Turning to Spain, he offered him a soft, honest smile, the one he'd been offering Spain for centuries and that was only for him, a secret between the two. He reached out a hand to him. Spain took it, smiled back. “Yes,” he said. “Let's go back home.”

* * *

While the cake was cooling off and Spain was arranging the bouquet in a vase on the kitchen table, humming to himself, a tiny voice in Portugal's head rationalized that Spain hadn't really understood, and that Spain had only wanted to stop arguing with him. Another tiny, shrieking voice wondered if, really, were they doing the right thing?

He silenced both voices. He'd been doing that for some decades, now.

**Author's Note:**

> Historical Notes:
> 
> The northern region is the poorest and least developed of Portugal. This didn't change in the Estado Novo era and in fact, poverty only worsened. This led to entire villages disappearing with people illegally fleeing to France to work as guest workers to escape misery. Lisbon, in comparison, enjoyed most foreign technological advances, mostly due to American investments in the area in order to keep appearances for diplomats and tourists and to improve relations between the West and isolated Portugal. Hence the “sacrifice to be made”.
> 
> Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese and became the only port city where trade could occur. Despite Japan's eventual isolation it still managed to hold close cultural ties to its Portuguese influence. Until the U.S. bombed it.
> 
> The small island of Timor was invaded by Japan in 1942. At the time the territory was divided by the Netherlands and Portugal. The short but incredibly violent occupation put Portugal in a difficult diplomatic spot, as openly waging war against an Axis Power would be a very, very dangerous move. Even though in Salazar's perspective neutral Portugal had been invaded, fighting back would be a war declaration. The Portuguese in Timor, along with the Dutch and the Allies did fight against the Japanese, but most of the damage had already been done.
> 
> The first oranges were brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 8th century. Nowadays southern Portugal and Spain are considered to have the best oranges of their countries and as such the south, oranges and Moorish culture became closely linked to one another. 
> 
> Portugal aided the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. Portugal's own fascist dictatorship had many singularities, considering it was the first one in western Europe and so didn't follow other examples. One of them was that poverty was seen as a good thing. Portuguese life was to lay in humbleness, simplicity and frugality, and this idea was only made stronger with the post-war era in the Western world and its style of middle-class excesses. I like to think that Portugal, being older and having always been more stable than Spain, was actually convinced by the dictatorship while Spain never really recovered from the Civil War. Turns out, Portugal was only lying to himself the whole time.
> 
> "The Stone Raft" (pt. A Jangada de Pedra) is the English title of a novel by Nobel prize winning Portuguese writer José Saramago, whose premise is that the Iberian Peninsula has broken off from the rest of the European Continent.


End file.
